Apex Real Estate Services · DRE #01422904 · CCIM-Led
Hemet, CA · (951) 977-3251
A guide to Ontario industrial real estate in Ontario, California (San Bernardino County), home of Ontario International Airport (ONT) and one of the cities in CoStar’s Airport Area, the Inland Empire’s largest industrial submarket.
Ontario industrial real estate is the warehouse, distribution and manufacturing property inside Ontario, California, about 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Ontario is one of the cities in CoStar’s Airport Area, the Inland Empire’s largest industrial submarket at roughly 259 million square feet, beside Ontario International Airport, which handled 835,129 tons of cargo in 2025.
Ontario covers nearly 50 square miles and is home to 184,404 residents, more than 14,400 businesses and 94,700 jobs, according to the City’s fiscal 2025 financial report. The City’s economic development office counts 120.2 million square feet of industrial space and 240 logistics establishments. That base is why Ontario, CA industrial real estate attracts distributors and institutional owners.
This page covers Ontario, California, in San Bernardino County, not the Canadian province. CoStar’s Airport Area also includes Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, so submarket figures below describe the wider area around Ontario.
Softer, but still the Inland Empire’s largest industrial market. In Q3 2026 the Airport Area submarket (CoStar), which includes Ontario, posted 8.2% vacancy, 12.8% availability, negative 12-month absorption and slightly lower asking rents.
CoStar counts 3,503 buildings and about 259 million square feet in the Airport Area, the #1 submarket by size, and calls it the nation’s largest industrial submarket. About 21.3 million square feet sat vacant, and 12-month net absorption was negative 862,131 square feet: more space was vacated than leased. The market asking rent was $1.06 per square foot, down 1.2% over 12 months. CoStar notes that a fire-demolished 1.2-million-square-foot Ontario warehouse also weighed on the market’s Q2 2026 move-outs.
Construction starts rebounded in 2026 after a 25-year low in 2025, per CoStar. About 1.33 million square feet delivered over 12 months, third among the 15 submarkets, and 5.58 million square feet is underway in 14 buildings, the most of any submarket though far below the 19.7-million-square-foot record of mid-2023. Only 29.6% of it is pre-leased. The average building under construction is 398,815 square feet, against 74,004 for existing stock. For anyone shopping Ontario industrial space, new choice skews to big boxes.
| Submarket (CoStar) | Inventory | Vacancy | 12-Mo Net Absorption | Asking Rent/SF | 12-Mo Rent Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airport Area (incl. Ontario) | 259.2M SF | 8.2% | −862,131 SF | $1.06 | −1.2% |
| Chino/Chino Hills | 57.5M SF | 6.2% | −595,985 SF | $1.08 | −1.0% |
| Upland/Montclair | 10.8M SF | 5.8% | 435,623 SF | $1.39 | 0% |
| Riverside | 83.0M SF | 7.5% | −1,054,652 SF | $1.07 | −0.8% |
| San Bernardino | 106.7M SF | 10.5% | 2,333,201 SF | $0.90 | −1.0% |
For context, Inland Empire vacancy was 8.7% in Q3 2026 and availability 12.5%, a 15-year high. CoStar reports these measures by submarket, not by city, so no CoStar figure covers Ontario’s city limits alone: the Airport Area numbers above describe a submarket that includes Ontario along with Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and nearby areas. For the region-wide view, see Apex’s Inland Empire industrial market forecast. For the Riverside submarket, see our guide to Riverside commercial real estate.
Ontario’s industrial buildings cluster along freeways, rail lines and airport land linking the ports to the country. The City lists direct access to I-10, I-210 and I-15, State Routes 60 and 83, and two major railways. For the site-selection factors behind these corridors, see our guide to warehouse site selection.
The railroads are Union Pacific and BNSF, with access to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. CoStar says construction remains concentrated in the Airport Area, including Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, reflecting proximity to Los Angeles and rail access to the ports. Of three speculative buildings over 1 million square feet that national developers have started, CoStar places one in Ontario.
Modern Ontario product. A 250,369-square-foot Ontario Commerce Center building at 3100 S. Hamner Avenue, built in 2024, has 36-foot clear height, 38 exterior docks and two drive-in doors. Source: City of Ontario Economic Development Agency, For Lease listings, July 2025.
The City’s May 2025 deck describes HUB@ONT, a 200-acre logistics park with 4.3 million square feet in nine buildings of 200,000 to 930,000 square feet, planned for completion in 2025. The same deck features Merrill Commerce Center, listing two Home Depot buildings totaling 2.2 million square feet and a 1.2-million-square-foot Lululemon flagship distribution center.
The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority is adding eight miles of tolled express lanes on I-15, through the SR-60 and I-10 interchanges on Ontario’s eastern side, a stretch serving 50 percent of interstate truck traffic to and from Southern California. And in fiscal 2023–24, the City’s Pension Benefit Fund loaned $55 million to the Ontario Industrial Development Authority to buy properties around the airport. For yard and trailer-parking sites, see industrial outdoor storage (IOS).
Cargo volume pulls parcel, express and e-commerce users into the buildings around the airport. ONT handled 835,129 tons of air cargo in 2025, up 5.3% from 2024.
In 2025, growth came from U.S. mail carried by UPS Airlines: mail shipments doubled while commercial freight fell 3.6%. Freight then turned: in the first half of 2026, ONT processed 428,217 tons, up 7.6%, and freight alone rose 11.2% to 368,923 tons. Over its first decade under local control, ONT’s cargo volume grew 45%.
+11.2% ONT freight tonnage, first half of 2026 versus 2025. Source: Ontario International Airport Authority.
Per the City, ONT has 1,741 acres, two runways over 10,000 feet, 4,000 workers, and UPS, FedEx and Amazon as major carriers. The City says it has invested more than $100 million in properties near ONT.
Institutional industrial owners and parcel carriers top the City’s lists. Prologis is the City’s largest property taxpayer, and UPS is its largest employer.
The City’s fiscal 2025 financial report lists Prologis at $1.44 billion of taxable value, 3.34% of the city total, up from about $393 million nine years earlier. The list also shows United Parcel Service at $802 million, Rexford Industrial Realty at $373 million and Federal Express at $348 million. Citywide taxable value reached $43.26 billion, about 2.06 times the $20.99 billion of nine years earlier.
The City reports United Parcel Service at 5,000 to 9,999 employees, and DAL Global Services and CRST Van Expedited at 1,000 to 4,999 each.
By Apex’s count of CoStar’s Q3 2026 table, 15 of the 40 largest Inland Empire industrial leases over the past year were in the Airport Area submarket, the largest a 1,286,569-square-foot lease in Q2 2026. CoStar also reports that two of the submarket’s three largest new leases signed in 2025, of about 615,000 and 612,000 square feet, were in Ontario.
About 70 as of April 2026, most of them small. Apex’s April 2026 count of CoStar tenant data found roughly 70 industrial leases in Ontario, totaling about 2.8 million square feet, set to expire within the following 18 months.
The size mix tilts to small bays: 43 of those leases are under 25,000 square feet, 20 fall between 25,000 and 99,999 square feet, and 6 are 100,000 square feet or larger. The count is Apex’s, not a CoStar-published figure.
Tenants roll into an Airport Area market with negative 12-month absorption and a construction pipeline only 29.6% pre-leased. Sublease space there totals about 4.3 million square feet, more than 15% of the submarket’s availability; across the Inland Empire, sublease space is 19% of availability and trades more than 20% below direct space. In Ontario, CoStar cites a 414,000-square-foot building from 1998 offered for sublease at $1.05 per square foot, triple net (NNN). Before renewing Ontario warehouse space, check what warehouse space costs across the Inland Empire and consider tenant representation for Ontario industrial space.
For owners, the same list is a retention calendar. Apex’s landlord representation starts renewal talks early. Owner-users who would rather stop renting can run the numbers in buying a small warehouse with an SBA 504 loan.
CoStar’s Q3 2026 list of significant Airport Area sales includes ten in Ontario, priced from $99 to $420 per square foot. Across the Airport Area, CoStar reports 96 sales totaling about $1.04 billion over 12 months at a $280-per-square-foot market sale price.
CoStar’s modeled Airport Area market cap rate is 4.7%, while closed Airport Area deals averaged 5.5% over 12 months; CoStar says elevated borrowing costs have pushed most transactions there into the mid-5% range. On Inland Empire logistics sales over $10 million, CoStar reports cap rates up about 150 to 200 basis points, reaching the mid-5% to 6% range from averages below 4%. They measure different things, so underwrite the building, not the average; see how cap rates are calculated.
| Ontario Building | Sale Date | Size | Price | Price/SF | Profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2825 Jurupa St (Hofer Ranch IC Building 100) | Jul 2026 | 612,083 SF | $143.9M | $235 | Built 2013 · 100% leased · portfolio sale |
| 1001 Doubleday Ave (California Commerce Center) | Feb 2026 | 406,345 SF | $40.2M | $99 | Built 1988 · 100% leased |
| 5651 E. Francis St | Jun 2026 | 58,929 SF | $14.6M | $248 | Built 1988 · 0% leased |
| 1095 E. California St | Apr 2026 | 60,925 SF | $12.2M | $200 | Built 2006 · 100% leased · sale-leaseback |
Three of the four were fully leased at sale, and CoStar gives no reason for the spread between them. Ontario industrial property is priced building by building.
Owners can compare a sale-leaseback for owner-users with a 1031 exchange advisory path. Apex is not a law, tax or accounting firm; consult your attorney and CPA.
Negotiate while the market is soft, and underwrite each building on its own facts.
With Airport Area vacancy at 8.2%, a pipeline only 29.6% pre-leased and weighted-average asking rents for available space roughly 30% below their 2023 average, per CoStar, tenants shopping Ontario warehouse space can ask for free rent or improvements.
In Apex’s April 2026 count, most expiring Ontario industrial leases were under 25,000 square feet. Small-bay users can price ownership against rent.
Ontario sales on CoStar’s Q3 list span $99 to $420 per square foot, and CoStar puts most Airport Area deals in the mid-5% cap rate range, above its modeled 4.7% Airport Area rate. Underwrite lease term, vintage and clear height.
Apex advises Ontario tenants, owners and investors with CCIM-led underwriting and sourced data. Assignments are led by Robert Mendieta Jr., CCIM, Associate Broker · Commercial Division, who has more than 20 years of commercial real estate experience.
Apex’s closed deals are listed on its recent Inland Empire transactions page.
Yes. Ontario, California is in San Bernardino County, about 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, and is one of the cities in CoStar’s Airport Area, the Inland Empire’s largest industrial submarket.
CoStar reports 8.2% for the Airport Area submarket, which includes Ontario, as of Q3 2026; it tracks submarkets, not cities. The City of Ontario’s May 2025 deck cites 4.6% for city limits, without a data date. The sources, geographies and periods differ.
CoStar’s Airport Area market asking rent was $1.06 per square foot in Q3 2026, down 1.2% over 12 months. Inland Empire industrial rents are usually quoted per square foot per month, triple net, so taxes, insurance and maintenance come on top.
The City of Ontario reports 120.2 million square feet of industrial space. CoStar’s Airport Area submarket, which covers Ontario and neighboring cities, totals about 259 million square feet.
CoStar reports a $280-per-square-foot market sale price and 4.7% market cap rate for the Airport Area as of Q3 2026. Ontario sales on its Q3 list of significant Airport Area sales ranged from $99 to $420 per square foot.
Access: I-10, I-15, I-210, State Routes 60 and 83, Union Pacific and BNSF rail, and the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Ontario International Airport handled 835,129 tons of air cargo in 2025.
As of April 2026, about 70 industrial leases totaling roughly 2.8 million square feet were set to expire within 18 months, per Apex’s count of CoStar tenant data. Most were small: 43 were under 25,000 square feet.
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Apex Real Estate Services · 3750 E. Florida Ave Suite A, Hemet, CA 92544 · Robert Mendieta Jr., CCIM, Associate Broker · Commercial Division, CA DRE #01422904 · (951) 977-3251 · robert@apex-res.com · Joseph Lombera, Commercial Agent + CMO, CA DRE #01971957. Last updated: October 3, 2026. Apex is not a law, tax or accounting firm; nothing here is legal, tax or accounting advice. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
